An Idea on Legal Growing

I had a discussion about the legalization of marijuana, and the person reminded me that marijuana is actually rather easy to grow, especially because once you buy a pack of seed, you no longer need to buy any more seeds, making it very hard to tax if legalization of personal growth happened.

So he and I formulated a possible idea specifically for growing: a growers license.

Restrictions on the license would be simple:

a) You do not have to have a reason to get the license. If it's for medical purposes, you note that only to get a discount.

b) The license itself is $10, but you also have to pay to grow a certain amount of plants. We came up $5 for every 5 plants or something like that (for a medical license, it'd be, like, maybe $3 for every 5 plants).c) You must be at least 18 for the license. (My friend thought that you should have to get parental permission [from 18] until you turn 21, but I'm not so sure about this, especially since some 18-year-olds still declare independence these days, so it would suck if they, no longer being dependent on or living with their parents, still had to get permission to get a growers license.)

This would ensure the ability to tax the growing of marijuana, because what you're paying for the license and the number of plants you can grow would be that tax.

Obviously, there would have to be rules just to ensure societal pressures are met. This is what we came up with:

You suffer consequences for the following:

-Driving while stoned (it's a hell of a lot safer than driving drunk [I have yet to hear about a driving accident caused by marijuana], but it's still a hell of a lot more dangerous than driving sober)

-Missing a significant amount of time of work or school for no obvious reasons (that is, you miss something like two weeks straight and the best excuse you have is a cold)

These are the only two we thought of, really.

There's a 4-strike system:

1st offense: A week's suspension on the license

2nd offense: A month's suspension on the license and a fine

3rd offense: A year's suspension on the license and a larger fine

4th offense: Marijuana is now fully illegal for the offender; being caught with it after this would result in all the same punishments marijuana users deal with now

I should note that major companies could still sell their "marijuana cigarettes", even though, admittedly, being able to grow would cut their business on this.

For me, I'd rather grow my own then purchase hat comes from Big tobacco, so this is something I would not only be interested in, but if this license (or something similar) ever did come out, I would be one of the first to purchase it.

But what do y'all think? Any other offense you could imagine falling under the 4-strike system? Would you purchase the license? Is it too restrictive? Let me know your thoughts.

Replies to This Discussion

The reason cannabis is illegal is because it grows so easily and abundantly that the capitalist class hasn’t figured out a way to make enough profits from it to outweigh the benefits to them by having it illegal, such as that it gives them an increased means of imposing the rich White culture onto everyone. There are large sections of the capitalist class dictatorship that have ties and interests linked to the western medical industry, who will never peacefully allow for cannabis to be legalized, ergo their profits take a huge hit. These are the same people who overwhelmingly control TV stations, newspapers, textbooks etc. but furthermore the same people who control the flow and price of the goods that are required of us to survive. Even if cannabis were legalized, what good would it do if no capitalist would rent you a place were you can grow, or no one will hire you if use cannabis etc..? I’m for cannabis liberation, not cannabis legalization. Cannabis cannot be liberated under the capitalist system, it will always be ruled over by those who own the means to produce the goods that are required of us to survive.

See, I really don't get that. There are lots of plants that grow easily and are still profitable, and most of them won't even get you high. A good portion of people would still rather have someone else grow them for you.

If marijuana is legalized, then just as drug tests don't test for alcohol or tobacco, they also would no longer test for marijuana, which means a company wouldn't [i]know[/i] whether or not you use it. Just don't be stupid and show up to the interview or your job stoned.

We don't get to tell the capitalists who they can and can't hire. If you try to force them to hire people they don't want to then they will push any number of their dictatorship buttons on you: "I got to raise prices now you see, because of the accident risks" or they move their operation to somewhere they can more easily $elect politicians (and policies) to fully serve their interests, or they roll back production and jobs <-- all of the aforementioned will create conditions in society that will allow them to rally and strengthen their fascist base (Christian fascists, "proud to be an Americans" and generally people who're under heavy influence of the rich White culture), and turn the common people against the political force that led the movement to legalize cannabis.

An yet they don't test for alcohol and tobacco, and can't fire you for using either of those.

All the conditions you speak of now were true during alcohol prohibition, as well. We ended that, and it barely took a year for the positive differences to show up. The capitalists will get over it when they realize that legalized pot is a hell of a lot more lucrative than criminalized pot.

Yes they can fire you for alcohol or tobacco. A capitalist can fire you, or push you out in various ways, for any reason they want so as long as they don't specifically say that it's because of the things in the eeo literature. It is currently completely legal for them to fire you or to never hire you for tobacco or alcohol consumption (even away from work). Also it doesn't matter if you make a law saying they have to do something. They don't have to do anything at all they don't want to do. If you want jobs and for goods to be produced in your area then you will do what the capitalist tells you to do.

Alcohol, or at least quality alcohol, is not easy to produce at home. There was indeed pushback from the fledgling medical industry against efforts to end prohibition. But now the medical industry is a whole new monster and without large sections of the capitalist class (like it was for alcohol) fighting it out with them over policy. Your claim that legalized cannabis is more lucrative to capitalists than vicdons, oxycodones, depression medicine, on and on, that people will no longer be consuming if cannabis were legal, is ridiculous. If cannabis were legal it would be planted everywhere, and people who tried to sell it wouldn't be able to get much for it.

PRG:

It's really irrelevant as to how many grow today under these conditions. If cannabis were legalized the numbers would change vastly.

You don't even have to tell them you drink or smoke tobacco! The drugs tests don't test for either, so unless you insist on taking smoke breaks or you somehow manage to bump into your boss's boss's boss's boss's boss (and the previous bosses) at a bar, how, exactly, would they know?

On the flip-side, not matter what you do, a company is going to know whether or not you smoke marijuana. Legalize it, and that's gone. It can't be tested for anymore.

As far as quality alcohol not being easy to produce at home... I never said it was. I'm not even sure where that came from. I have first-hand experience into how hard alcohol can be to produce at home.

As far as the power players, the main difference between the prohibition-era and today is mass communication. They didn't have TV, On Demand, or the internet.

And legalized cannabis would be a hell of a lot more lucrative. Marijuana is the black market's most lucrative product. In the black market, it outsells OTC and prescription drugs. What makes you think it wouldn't do the same when legalized?

ETA:

You're not going to start talking about the New World Order, are you?...

Again, you're not going to be able to simply talk a capitalist into doing something they don't want to do. If you piss them off too bad they'll just move their money elsewhere and make you pay for pissing them off.

Cannabis would be nearly as cheap as grass pretty soon after it were legalized. When something is rare or hard to obtain its value is increased. If tomatoes grew on the side of the road everywhere no one would buy any, same with cannabis.

We would probably have to pass a law first saying that employers can't test for marijuana b/c it's legal. I know that Walmart fired some employees for taking legal medical marijuana and failing the drug test, and probably other employers did the same, even though it was legal for that person to take it.

I agree that is their problem... but instead of thinking about the money they couldn't make legalizing maybe they could think of the money that they would save not fighting it.... and I would be willing to pay $50 dollars for 5 plants... hell I would be willing to pay $50 a plant every year with a cap on 10 plants a cycle, from seed to fruiting.... which would be at least 2 times a year for an indoor garden... that would be the growers fee... you could also buy a permit to supply for other people, that would require them to by a users license and pay for the growers license with a labor fee. Not everyone would want to hassle with growing, or maybe they wanted better quality then they could grow themselves. I am just saying that the government is not doing it because of religion.